Reverse Mentoring: A Magic Bullet to keep Millennials Engaged at Workplace

Abstract

This study is based on secondary data which presents the use of reverse mentoring to keep millennials engaged at the workplace. Mentoring involves a two way communication between people having a work relationship. Mentor in a traditional mentoring system has always been a senior person who would guide the new joiners in their career and goal achievement journey. Today, in every three employees, one employee is a millennial in the workforce. The expectation of millennials from the workplace is completely different from that of the baby boomers who would be retiring in the coming years. However, the millennials have a dynamic thought process, are technologically strong and love to work with autonomy. On the other hand, the baby boomers, generation X and Y are more stable and use only basic technology. Here, comes the role of reverse mentoring with the traditional mentoring process where the juniors who are tech savvy become the mentor for imparting training and knowledge on the continuous use of technology, use of social networking and providing support in the changing business scenario. Factors responsible for successful reverse mentoring will be discussed in the paper and practices of various companies following reverse mentoring and the challenges while implementing the reverse mentoring system will be presented.